Struggling with damn permission problem

[Anonymous]

Greetings all,

I’ve been trying to get past the dreaded “Error scanning MP3 files: Permission denied” issue with zero success. Here are my specs:

* mt-daapd/Firefly Version: mt-daapd-0.2.4.2-3.el5 via RPM from EPEL
* Server Operating System: Clean install of CentOS 5.2 (2.6.18-92.1.22.el5)
* Server Hardware: Shuttle XPC, 1Ghz Athlon, 1GB RAM
* Client Device: Haven’t gotten there yet, but ultimately Mac and Win iTunes 8.0.2
* Connection of clients: 100 MBit router
* Write down a summary of the problem. What did you do? What did you expect? How did it behave instead?

I installed the package from EPEL, which seems to have taken care of most everything.

[root@spud /]# grep mt-daapd /etc/passwd
mt-daapd:x:100:103:mt-daapd:/var/lib/mt-daapd:/sbin/nologin

[root@spud /]# grep mt-daapd /etc/group
mt-daapd:x:103:

root@spud /]# ls -l /etc/mt-daapd.conf
-rw-r

---

1 root root 6618 Jan 14 16:35 /etc/mt-daapd.conf
( The only parameter changed was mp3_dir to /home/muser/Moozic/mp3. runas is still mt-daapd )

[root@spud /]# ls -l /var/log/mt-daapd.log
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Jan 14 16:42 /var/log/mt-daapd.log

[root@spud /]# ls -l /var/cache/mt-daapd/songs.gdb
-rw

---

1 mt-daapd mt-daapd 12288 Jan 14 16:42 /var/cache/mt-daapd/songs.gdb

Here’s the ultimate location of the music. Originally, I had dozens of folders and sub-folders worth of albums, but decided to reduce it to a single MP3 file to reduce testing variables. All MP3s were ripped via iTunes at 192kbps. Finally, the mp3 folder and the /var/cache file are on the same filesystem, so there shouldn’t be a problem with the inode references.

[root@spud /]# ls -l /home/muser/Moozic/
total 8
drwxrwxr-x 2 mt-daapd mt-daapd 4096 Jan 14 16:38 mp3

[root@spud /]# ls -l /home/muser/Moozic/mp3/
total 5700
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mt-daapd mt-daapd 5820513 Jan 14 16:38 Teenage Dirtbag.mp3

* If you receive error messages, please write them down exactly.

I set the debug level to 10, trying to get any bit of a clue. Away we go…

[root@spud /]# /etc/init.d/mt-daapd start
Starting DAAP server: Read web_root: /usr/share/mt-daapd/admin-root
Read port: 3689
Read admin_pw: mt-daapd
Read db_dir: /var/cache/mt-daapd
Read mp3_dir: /home/muser/Moozic/mp3
Read servername: mt-daapd
Read runas: mt-daapd
Read extensions: .mp3,.m4a,.m4p,.ogg,.flac
Read logfile: /var/log/mt-daapd.log
Checking existence of /home/muser/Moozic/mp3
Checking existence of /var/cache/mt-daapd
[ OK ]
Looks good. Let’s double-check…

[root@spud /]# /etc/init.d/mt-daapd status
mt-daapd dead but pid file exists

Damn! What went wrong?

[root@spud /]# cat /var/log/mt-daapd.log
2009-01-15 14:44:08: Starting rendezvous daemon
2009-01-15 14:44:08: Initializing avahi
2009-01-15 14:44:08: Client running
2009-01-15 14:44:08: Creting service group
2009-01-15 14:44:08: No entries yet… skipping service create
2009-01-15 14:44:08: Starting avahi polling thread
2009-01-15 14:44:08: Starting signal handler
2009-01-15 14:44:08: Signal handler started
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Loading playlists
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Initializing database
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Finished loading smart playlists
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Building playlists
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Loaded database… found 0 songs
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Starting mp3 scan
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Foreground scanning for MP3s in /home/muser/Moozic/mp3
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Initial update over. Removing stale items
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Done removing stale items
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Reorganizing db
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Reorganize done
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Finding deleted static playlists
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Error scanning MP3 files: Permission denied
2009-01-15 14:44:09: Aborting

And that’s it. Unless I’ve missed something blatantly obvious, it feels like the “Permission denied” error is a bit of a red-herring, but not being an mt-daapd expert, I’m not sure where else to go. Anyone?

TIA,
MB

[fizze]

Well, do the blatantly obvious check.

sudo su - mt-daapd

and try to look at the directory path of the music, also the admin-root, etc.

I’m guessing there are maybe some permission issues higher up in the path?

[Anonymous]

@fizze wrote:

Well, do the blatantly obvious check.

sudo su - mt-daapd

Well, that did it.

Whomever built the RPM added the following /etc/password entry:

mt-daapd:x:100:103:mt-daapd:/var/lib/mt-daapd:/sbin/nologin

However, they never bothered to create the /var/lib/mt-daapd home directory. I just changed runas to nobody and it worked like a charm.

Thanks, fizze.

-MB

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